Squishy Humans
Lyrra Madril
Posts: 277
Hi!
so the Squishy Humans project is finally available in the store. Now I'm going to say its not for everybody - it involves a lot of dForce cloth engine and more than one figure in the cene can take a while to simulate. But if you don't mind dealing with dForce, and setting up a simulation animation it can add a lot of subtle and not so subtle realism to your images. So I'm going to explain a little of whats going on in it and how its built, and then I'm going to start posting clusters of the promo images at full size. Some of the changes are hard to see, and I figured this would help.
Technical constraints:
I wanted to build a soft body simulation system for DAZ studio using the tools laying around (dForce cloth engine) Well if you just make the human skin dynamic nightmare things happen. I think we've all done that by accident by now. So I knew I had to build an armature structure inside the figure, as well as control the surface of the figure to allow skin elasticity.
Differrent People are Differrent - However, differrent shapes should deform differrently. A very large shape like George should squish differrently then a slender person, and a muscular person. However this needed to be a one-squish-fits-everyone solution. So it isnt ideal for eveyone, which means you may want to tweak the simulation settings to suit your character.
Dforce limitations - The other big technical constrait is that dForce does not currently allow for a one-click preset be applied to a figure. So you will need to go into the Characters folder to find Squishy Human Base 8 and Squishy Human Base 8.1 and then build your character onto those. I really wanted to make it a one click application but nothing I tried would work and the DAZ programmers couldn't find anything either. So I'm sorry about that, and if it ever changes be sure I will update this project.
Resolution Effects Deformation - And the last technical constraint is mesh resolution. Frankly Genesis 8 bases are not very dense. This means that very small or sharp deformation doesn't happen. So if you want a hand print shaped indent on the chest or buttocks, you are going to need to start with Squishy Human, and then use a modeler to get the rest of the way. You could try subdividing g8 more, but in my tests I didn't see much of a change so I'm pretty sure that won't help
Geografts - Geografts work fin as long as they do not intersect any ares of the figure that has simulation active on. So I made sure that all genital grafts will work. Anything on the head should work as well as hands and feet. Chest and buttock area grafts may not work, as the mesh will rip apart during simulation. I tested a wide variety of grafts from DAZ and other sites.
What to look for after simulation
Simulation effectively 'turns on gravity' and adds weight to the figure. Depending on the pose and motion large muscle masses will shift. Look at the thighs, arms and torso. Small areas will collide with themselves such as the arm into the chest, thighs pressed togather, and legs crossed. Unexpected effects also happen, when bent forward the belly starts to roll, and side to side motion also starts to develop compression wrinkles naturally.
If you have used dynamic clothing the clothing and Squishy Human will effect each other. If the clothing is not dynamic, then it will act as a hard surface collission.
Pros
Adds very subtle natural shaping dynamiclly according to pose and motion. Can add dramatic changes due to impact with another figure or a prop. Default setting works fairly well with most figure shapes including heavy, slender and muscular. Relatively simple to use as long as you remember to use simulation animaitons any time another figure or prop is collided with. If your hair, cloth and figure are all dynamic then all items will affect each other naturally.
Cons
It's dForce, and dForce can be twitchy. Do not, EVER let a figure limb cross through another limb or prop during simulation, or clip through a floor plane. Its ugly and disturbing. If you have an extensively grafted figure some of the graft welds will cause issues. Currently you have to work on the Squishy Human base presets, and dial the morph and load materials for your character. There is NO simulation active on the head, hands or feet and simulaiton has been greatly adjusted to avoid clashing with inherent JCM 'collision' morphs built into the figures (back of knees, armpits). So poking her in the cheek will do nothing, sorry.
So in conclusion
This is another tool and approach to a solution for softbody collissions. I worked with FeralFey, one of our excellent pose artists, who has made some bases poses in the sets and another pose set so you have some animaitons premade to work with. This is obviously not a perfect soltuion, but I think it's prety good for most uses and has some space for customisation for your particular needs.
Okay and now for the images :)
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Comments
missed one
On this one look at the whole shape of the thighs, they shift significantly due to the compression of the seat and the raised angle. There is also compression of the arm against the chest and the raised leg.
Classic sitting on floor. look for impact of the buttocks, compression of the thighs against the torso and compression along the calves and thigh from the arms and hands
This is the default Heavy shape. Ideally I would adjust the simulation settings for a more heavyset figure, but this set of images is for the purpose of illustrating the default.
Everwhere the figure touches a surface or itself has some level of compression. Look at the large masses of the thighs, chest and belly. The clothing was converted to dforce and moves with the figure here.
I also included an earlier test image with Heavy in my Univers-I-Tee dynamic tshirt. As you can see eveything folds and rolls as the figure bends forward.
and the last of the female images the side by side comparisons
As you can see Default, Latonya, Heavy and Pear all react differrently to the same pose. As the shape changes the simulatiion alters some areas more on some shapes than other. Heavy and Pear have more impact in the torso region, but they all have weight shifting and impact from the position of the legs.
So I had two couples promos but DAZ felt they were too much for the store.
So um Richard I'm sorry but delete these if you feel it neccassary. lol
Lots going on here - figures colliding each other, with props and dynamic cloth. Again look for large masses shifting, floor and seat collission and figure to figure collissions.
stubborn site...
ok now for the men
Yes the chair is included in the set, I wanted a nice simple base for the pose examples.
As you can see here there is weight shifting on the thighs and arms, impact on the buttocks, and thighs
This is the shape named George. As you can see he has a lot more mass than the default, so a lot more impact.
The legs impact the seat, and the arm on the side. The arm presses into the chest and abdomen. Looking at the shoulder and upper arm all the masses settle a bit more on both sides. The dynamic shorts (On Vacation set) also settle following the shape of the thighs as they comporess. The belly has compression folds starting.
This is the Bodybuilder shape in the Loincloth Collection Atlas Loincloth
So this is a muscular figure, with larger shapes but also more firm and detailed. the Challenge is to ahve the realtic gravity and motion, while maintaining the muscular shapes.
The chest is compressed by both arms and itself, so some changes there. There is a a little settling of the upper arms and forearms. The weight of the thighs has shifted due to gravity and sngles. The loincloth of course settles and at the hem pulls away form the body. There is some impact of the further arm on the thigh and the shins and calves with each other.
This is one case where ideally some of the simulation should be reduced, since muscles are firmer. However for an unaltered simualiton with the default settings nothing too terrible happened to a challenging shape.
and the last I'm posting for the fellas
This is side by sides of default simulated, and two challenging shapes Brute and Heavy.
Default shape has impact against the chair, and the hand on the thigh. Not a lot of other collissions going on, so most of hte shpe has just a little gravity settling and thats it.
Brute pose was slightly adjusted. You can see impact of the thighs on the seat, as well as the hand on the thigh. Some imapct also going on with the arm against the chest and torso. The large masses have settled a bit on legs and the arms. Ideally I would reduce simulation on his biceps to keep them firmer.
Heavy post was also adjusted. You can see impact of thighs against the seat, and the hand on the thigh. The chest and arms also collide, and there is settling of the torso weight. If he moves further forward belly rolls will start to form. One calf is impacting the chair leg but we cant see much change from this angle.
Okay.. I think thats it for show and tell and now I need breakfast.
Is this product perfect? no of course not, it was caught between so many limitations and there are many compromises. Will I try to improve it? you betcha.
Is this product right for you?
well I don't know. It depends what you are after. If you want giant mounds of jello squishing out between fingers, probably not. Due to the resolution of the figure that effect is difficult to get on a stock figure. This can get you started, but you may need to find an additional solution for the geometry issue or refine the result with a sculpting program.
If you want a little more realism on impact areas and from gravity, then yes, you will probably like this product.
Protip - do NOT simulate with hair visible in simulation
Lyrra
Thank you so much for creating the thread and sharing the additional photos, Lyrra!
I was on the fence, but I actually love the idea and have a lot of ideas for testing it out. I'll share them once I've installed and tested later today.
How does it work with poses that intersect the mesh as they transition through the timeline? This is an issue with dForce clothing so I'd imagine it would be an issue for this as well?
Honestly this looks like it could be amazing. There's been so many times I'm trying to fix thighs and shins interacting using things like Shape Enhancer and, assuming my poor laptop can handle it, this could be so much easier.
It's too bad you can't apply it to existing figures, but what are you going to do about tech limitations like that
I'm certainly no expert on the subject but could we not get around the resolution issue by creating high-poly geografts for some of the 'squishier' areas of the figure and run dforce on those instead? It would also solve the other issue of not having a one-click application on existing figures by having these grafts as wearable presets.
Hi MelissaGT. Thanks for this question. So Squishy Humans tend to 'splode just like any other dForce outfit/product when there are intersections occur. I've created some Animated Timeline Poses (ATP) that help move the Squishy Humans into place so that there is sufficient collision between the figure and itself (or in the couples pose set with each other) without creating an explosion. I have also included a PDF tutorial in all of the sets that help explain how to use the ATPs to their full effect.
When using poses of your own or from another set, you'll need to set up your timeline pretty much how I've set them up for this project, with the final pose sitting at frame 15. It takes the additional 15 frames to allow the Squishy Human to "settle". When you add in other dForce objects, like clothing, I'd add an additional 15 or more frames to the animation, but still keeping the final pose at frame 15. What I have done is to also put the pose in question at the start of the animation (frame 0) to keep things consistent along the bones that you aren't going to move in the animation. The timeline in DS can be silly at times, so it helps to remind it that this is the pose you're starting with, as well as ending with (but you will be moving the pose from the zero frame. More on that next.)
What I do next is to look at the pose and see where the figure might be wanting to some pressure point to show up in the Squishy Human. Are they seated on something, sitting on the ground? That'll mean they'll need to collide with those things, and so in the zero frame, I'll move the hip bone up on the Y axis. The higher the distance and the faster the collision, the bigger the mesh reaction, so keep that in mind. Then look at interactions of the legs and arms on itself. Are the legs bent? Are they pressing in on each other? What about the arms? Are they bent or touching the body? These will all need to be altered in the zero frame, calculated to not intersect anything they're not supposed to. (Bent arms, hands, and fingers are notorioius for this, so you'll have to move them if they'll pass through anything along the timeline. )
I suggest running the scrubber (the big yellow downward facing arrow on the timeline) back and forth a couple of times to see if all your bones are missing other parts of the figure - at least until the collision at frame 15. Once you're satisfied with the results, you can run your simulation. (Make sure you're not running the simulation from the "Memorized Bone" and that you're using the "Custom Timeline" (I think it's labeled slightly different but key words are Custom and Timeline) otherwise you won't get the results you're looking for.
Good luck!
I've followed your tips from the other forum post but I can't seem to get it to work.
I set up the timeline and placed the sitting pose on frame 15 but I can't seem to get it to settle - is there something I missed?
You can't apply squishy to an an existing character, but you CAN load squish and apply the character, shape, textures, HD morphs, all that- so it's all good.
Yes, you can make grafts that are higher resolution and mix those in for specific body areas. Then you would have to 'tune' the simulation strength map on figure and addons to work across the seam areas. I tested this with two existing chest and buttock geografts which do not natively have dforce. (not sold at DAZ) The theory works but the grafts would need to be purpose built to maintain an even polygon distribution. An area with very small and very large polygons tends to buckle and distort with dforce simulation (this was an issue on the genesis 8 female breasts).
Those grafts would be wearable presets and suitable for one click application. But that would not get aorund the issue of the main body preset. You can't make the whole setup a wearable preset. I tried that. I have found a lot of things that did not work lol
In theory one could make a whole new higher res g8 skin and replace the whole figure, but uh. This way iies madness lol
Where is she at at beginning pose? does she collide with the chair at any point in the timeline? it looks like it happened
Hi, evacyn! I just saw you had written in the other thread. And now I can address the issues you're having.
When you applied your pose, did you first clear the animation timeline? If you did and you still see little triangles along the timeline, you'll need to remove those by selecting them and then clearing them by pressing the "remove keyframe" button on the bottom of the timeline. (I'm getting together an image for you.) It looks to me like the Squishy Human female has been previously simulated and might be retaining simulations on the armatures from a previous pose. I've found that sometimes when you clear the figure's pose from the timeline, it doesn't always clear the armatures, so those will need to be removed.
Once those are all cleared off, try applying your pose again, both at frames 0 and 15. At frame zero, see where the figure sits in relationship to the chair seat. Check to see how much "squish" you expect to have at the end of the simulation. Adjust the hip level up or down to where you want it (but do this on the 15th frame and not the 0 frame.) Then back on the zero frame move the figure up on the Y axis on the hip bone so that it's just above the chair seat. See if that doesn't give you a better result.
Absolutely. But I have a bunch of characters already made that could really use some squish. It'll just take a little longer and considering how much I futz around it's not that big a deal
Thank you so much, FeralFey - that was the trick. I had the timeline set up so that it was base pose at 0 and the actual sitting pose at 15. But adding the sitting pose to both 0 and 15 fixed the issue :) I'll post a proper image once I get something rendered.
Okay - here's my quick test with Clara and a random test scene. I love the more natural interaction with the chair which is what I was hoping would work and I can see myself using a lot. Her upper left thigh got a bit bumpy but that's something that I might be able to fix but adjusting the distance of the Y-axis of the hip at the 0 frame.
Looking really good, evacyn!! Glad you got it to work, and thanks for posting the render!!
I'm seeing some weird distortion on G8F's palm when placed on G8M's shoulder. Any idea how to fix this?
Hello.
I really like this product very much.
My question is: how (if possible, at all) to apply squishiness to male anatomical element, so that it would deform upon a collision?
Thank you for any suggestions.
Regards
BlendiZ
Originally there was anatomical elements for the male figure, but for some inexplicable, bizarre reason G8/8.1's "junk" caused the mesh to jiggle when it was just sitting there after figure had been posed. (No anmiation, no simulation. It made the male figure twitch.) It doesn't affect simulation, and it doesn't affect rendering, but because it wasn't behaving as expected after the figure was posed, Lyrra made the decision to drop it from the package in order to get the product through testing and into customers' hands. She couldn't figure out why it was doing that, nor could Daz's DS developers. But that's not to say that they've left it alone. There might at some point having the anatomical elements added back in. I just don't have a good time line for when, or if, that would happen. (I'm really sad because I know a lot of people would have liked this feature.)
@3DRT - When this happened, was it the first pose you applied to the figure? Or was this after you tried a different pose? To my eye, it looks like you have simulated it previously and all the armature's posing/simulating haven't been cleared from the timeline from the last pose. But if this was the first pose you used, let me know and we'll try to sort out what's going on for you.